Handheld electronic devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, digital cameras, and the like, offer mobility and a variety of services to their respective users. They are typically configured to transmit and receive data to and from other devices via a wired or wireless connection. Most mobile phones, for example, can provide Internet access, maintain a personal address book, provide messaging capabilities, capture digital images, as well as place phone calls.
Many devices, in particular mobile phones, can identify their respective locations within a certain range depending on the device and location identifying technique. Some devices can use a sophisticated position determining system, such as a Global Positioning System (GPS). The GPS is a satellite-based radio navigation system that uses signals from three or four satellites to compute the current latitude, longitude and elevation of a GPS receiver in the device anywhere on earth down to within a few meters. Other devices can use a location identifying technique based on which base station is servicing the device, that is, the location of the device is within a range of the base station from which a call is made. Other devices can use location identifying techniques based on triangulation between the device and at least two base stations.
The device's location, typically represented by geospatial coordinates, can be used in a variety of ways. For example, geographical information systems (GISs) exist that map geospatial coordinates to street addresses or location names. The street address or name corresponding to the geospatial coordinates can be associated with an image captured by the device at the location and stored as metadata. The metadata can then be used to categorize the image or to remind the user of the location of where the image was captured.
Alternatively, or in addition, the user can associate other information with a location. The other information can be a description of, or a personalized name for, the location. For example, the user can provide a name of a location based on a favorite store, e.g., “Charbucks,” at or near that location, or based on a description of an event, e.g., “café where I had lunch with Sally.” In this manner, the location name can be personalized and relevant to the user.
Typically, the user can provide a name of a location when the user captures an image or visits the location. Nevertheless, unless the user is prompted to name the location, the user can easily forget, or be too distracted, to provide a name at the time the picture is taken or at the time of the visit. If the user attempts to name the location later, he may have problems remembering the location, and even if the user remembers the location, he may have difficulties specifying it accurately to the device so that it can be used as metadata. On the other hand, if the device prompts the user to name a location every time an image is captured or at every location visited, the user can easily be overwhelmed with prompts to name locations that are of no interest to the user.